


t s u n a d e | ... or something like it.

by Rosse



Series: ... or something like it. [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol, Character Death, Character Study, Gen, twisty weird 3am writing again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosse/pseuds/Rosse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which a bar merges reality, philosophical discussions and death.</p><p>or, everything i could say about this fic would spoil it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	t s u n a d e | ... or something like it.

Her breath is saturated with alcohol; heavy, invisible clouds pulsing between them as she exhales languidly and blinks to focus her vision. The bar hums with quiet activity, muttered conversations among old oak tables sticky with wine and sanded by time. heavy drawn curtains and low, flickering lights to keep the night and day away. A heavy atmosphere of privacy hangs over the place, genjutsu flickering thick and obvious between the tables. She does nothing about it.

"You know, we coulda avoided a whole lot of this if you weren't such an _asshole_ ," she mutters, dark glares and bright hair that both glow with fire in the dim light of the bar. Another drink provided by some faceless waiter tipped back down her throat for comfort and boredom. A lack of anything to do, of anyone to be.

"I don't enjoy repeating discussions. surely you remember that much?" He smells like blood and sake, a combination that goes back in her memory to hazy summer days and so so many people she's lost track. Everyone drinks, bleeds, covers themselves in the blood of their victims because death is rarely easy or clean when you cause it. His fingers clasp the slender neck of a bottle, thin and pale against jewel green, lifting and tipping back the dregs of drink.

"Yeah. Sure. But humour me for once." The words are a grumble over her cup, an eye roll vocalised in tired, oft-repeated words of years gone by. He quirks a brow and rests his chin on his hand lightly, a hum of thought and glances to the walls - beyond her golden hair to burnt orange walls of peeling paint and stained art.

"Very well. And how should I humour you, princess?" A distinct lack of laughter punctuates his words as another faceless employee provides more alcohol with unfamiliar labels and indistinct proof numbers. She tsks and shrugs, the fabric of her coat a murmuring rustle; too heavy silk that doesn't belong over her shoulders, that befits a noblewoman more than a shinobi. It's uncomfortable. She's never liked the trappings of formality, always complained when forced into kimono for family duties because why couldn't she wear her normal stuff anyway?

She supposes that's just how this kind of humour goes; someone, somewhere laughing at how she twitches and shudders under the layers. Her eyes flick over his dark hair and too-dull eyes and harden. "Don't be stupid. Just... tell me. What d'you think woulda happened if you stayed?" The heavy silk is sticky and dark where her elbows have dug into the alcohol-stained oak and she picks at the sleeves with delicate, bony fingers, rolling them over paper-fine skin.

He laughs and pours a measure of drink into both their glasses - small, delicate things she could smash with a pinch, she realises when her nail grates against the frosted glass - and pushes heavy layers of dark hair over his shoulder. "Tell me, Tsunade, do you believe in the theory of infinite universes?" he asks and she looks at him, nose wrinkled in confusion and eyes glinting brilliantly.

"I don't see what that has to--"

"Just humour me," he interrupts, teeth gleaming in the low light, all points and danger. She supposes she deserves that, clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes.

 _Fine._ "The one that says there exists an infinite number of universes and an infinite number of ourselves, right?" He nods, though it isn't a question she needs answering. "Yeah, I guess it's possible." She hasn't thought of anything like that in years, spending too many of them regretting and wallowing in memories of this universe to worry about whether there are other Tsunade in other worlds doing other things. Then again, she supposes as the shot burns her throat with the warmth of an old friend, she wouldn't want to know if she's happy in other worlds.

"I would say that I left in all of them." The words, for once, do not come out smug, do not drip in the venom of malice or twist like a dagger in her side. They are not accompanied by an all-knowing smirk and flashing eyes. They are. Words, nothing more. She leans back, waits with her eyes on his too-full, too-young lips, watching the tension and pull. Old habits she recognises all too well, the only indication of thoughts flitting through his mind, of words left unsaid. "For what it's worth, I believe you stayed in many, though left in more." And here Tsunade's eyebrows raise.

"What does that mean?"

"Konoha was too small for any of us," he muses and she nearly punches him into the wall of the bar for a reply that conveys nothing but an idea that leaving Konoha had been a lark for herself and Jiraiya as well. That they hadn't ran out of there chased by fire and ghosts and chasing ghosts and fire. But all that happens is the slam of her fist against an immovable table and the hiss of his sigh, impassive and unimpressed. "Essentially, we would always reach an impasse." Her mind works through those words slowly, unpeeling and dissecting them, trying to imagine the unfolding of events that would occur if some things had been different. If he had wanted a little less; if the world had let her keep a little more. Silence envelopes her, hums in her ears and weighs against her skin like the ocean does to a drowning man. He blinks lazily, waits for her to speak.

"We never will see eye to eye on things, will we?" Lips quirk, anger soothed by a long-standing refrain that swims in her thoughts. Always, always said. Will we save him or ourselves? Is it worth their lives? Squid or prawn? Never, never agreeing.

"Perhaps only that." And she laughs, because she doesn't know what else to do. Drink, talk, laugh.

Forgetforgetforget--

"Anyway. Still your asshole fault I ended up pushing papers for years," she quips after downing another shot of some booze they probably shouldn't have, some bottle that should probably be behind the bar but this place seems to forget all the rules and conventions of anything. The joke tastes as bitter as the alcohol, hiding the myriad of things he's at fault for in stupid, reckless words she wields as an impromptu weapon.

Forgetforgetforget--

\--Always remember.

"I suppose in some way," he agrees and she just stares for a moment at a point just behind his head where some indistinct head of white hair sits at the bar. He clears his throat and she starts, shaking her head free of cobwebs and feathers. "Did you hear me?" She makes a noise that he easily identifies as a no, all phlegm and idle tones hummed against her tongue and the back of her throat. "Do you believe we are the same people in those other worlds?" He always had a way of making her blink, of using words and musings that push beyond the limits of comfort and normal conversation between shinobi. Shinobi don't often speak so philosophically, except the geniuses, because they're too busy trying to stay alive to care whether they have counterparts in other universes and whether those counterparts are the same people.

"No, I don't think so," she eventually says, rolling a napkin and twisting it around her fingers. They look so thin and her skin is so dry... Were they always like that? "Can't be the same people if you do things differently, can you?" He shrugs like he hasn't thought about it and she flings the twisted tissue at him in response. Like hell he doesn't have an answer. He always has an answer. He only asks questions to give an answer, to show off.

"I don't know about that. You did want me to change, and wouldn't that mean I was no longer... me? If Jiraiya had changed, you might not have loved him so much." A quiet counter, slipped between them as a child might whisper out the answer to a difficult question in class, as if the boundaries hiding their conversation from all the others (and there are so many, why is this place so large?) do not exist. Her eyes slip beyond him again, watching the blurred forms of the unidentified masses relax, speak, laugh. Just like friends should. Just like all those who come here to rest do and have done and will do. The deserved reward of years, of toiling and work and pain and all those other things everyone deals with before--

Then the words come to her. A question which she cannot pull herself away from, that invades her mouth and mind like cotton, thick and uncomfortable. "Is he here?" He just looks at her, lips quirking in a way she hasn't seen for _years_ without malice or threat.

"You finally realised?"

"... Where?" Her eyes flick back to the crowds of people, of tables and bars, catch a flash of white that comes into their space with a chair and a boyish grin. He's all bulk and height, filling up the space around them with his limbs and hair, making everything feel whole again.

"Finally made it, eh, Tsunade?" Jiraiya laughs and takes a drink straight from the bottle, manners and graces forgotten because he always, always forgets them and never, ever cares that he does. "We've been waiting."

"Some longer than others," Orochimaru interjects, mouth twisting sourly and arms folded against his chest just the way he did as a child if they left him waiting too long. She takes them both in: Jiraiya, whole, laughing and the same face he wore out of Konoha when he left for the last time; Orochimaru, too young, too boyish and fine, pouting.

Herself, paper-thin skin and wrinkled hands.

"You could've avoided it, idiot." Jiraiya's voice is all laughter and joy, all peace and forgotten worries, affectionate as it insults. She breathes it in, as if his voice can be captured by her body, and pushes away the glass with a finality. There's a lightness to death that transcends the alcohol her system whisks away too quickly, as if the realisation of her mortality has blinked it out of existence. Orochimaru scowls even more and Tsunade tries not to laugh (fails, miserably, by the way) at the look on his face. Jiraiya leans over to her and whispers; "He had to try and be immortal, didn't he?"

"Where are we, anyway?" she asks and Jiraiya just glances around and points to a familiar patch in the wall while reminiscing about the first time they all got drunk.

\--Always remember.


End file.
